History

The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) was founded on 26 May 1990 in Sarajevo, as a "party of Muslim cultural-historic circle". It was a realisation of Alija Izetbegović's idea of an Islamic religious and national party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many members of the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including imams, took part in the party's foundation. Alija who was chosen as its chairman tried to resolve disputes between the Muslim nationalist-Islamists led by Omer Behmen and the left-wing Muslims led by Adil Zulfikarpašić. The party has its roots in the old Yugoslav Muslim Organization, a conservative Bosniak party in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Yugoslav Muslim Organization was a successor of Muslimanska Narodna Organizacija (Muslim National Organization), a conservative Bosniak party founded in 1906 during the Austro-Hungarian era. The Muslim National Organization was itself a successor of the conservative Bosniak "Movement for waqf and educational autonomy" (Pokret za vakufsko-mearifsku autonomiju) that goes back to 1887.

The SDA achieved considerable success in elections after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. It founded the newspaper Ljiljan. The party remains the strongest political party among the Bosniak population in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In November 2000 the party was defeated by the Social Democratic Party and other parties gathered into the "Alliance for Change", and found itself in opposition for the first time since its creation.[3]